In the Public Interest

Like other families, the Bush family eats, uses medicines, and relies on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to assure the safety of vast amounts of both products. Like other families, more and more of the food and medicine you consume is coming from other countries where the FDA has very little inspection authority. Nearly…

Dear President Bush: I was listening to your address before the self-described Conservative Political Action Committee gathering in Washington, D.C. last week, while reviewing materials on occupational hazards in the workplace. The contrast between your declarations and the ongoing annual tragedy of 58,000 Americans losing their lives due to workplace diseases and traumas (OSHA figures)…

It is dull but so very important. It is sub-visible but in your pocket and on your back. I speak of the hundreds of billions each year of federal government contracts, grants, leaseholds and licenses given to corporations to run our government, exploit our taxpayer assets and lay waste to efficient, responsive public services. Before…

It was billed as the great debate that, in the words of moderator Wolf Blitzer, “could change the course of this presidential race and the nation.” Situated at the packed historic Kodak Theatre—site of the Hollywood Oscar awards, thousands of people, including anti-war protesters, were outside, where tickets were being scalped for $1,000. The burgeoning…

For Bill and Hillary Clinton, the ultimate American dream is eight more years. Yet how do you think they would react to having dozens of partisans at their rallies sporting large signs calling for EIGHT MORE YEARS, EIGHT MORE YEARS? Don’t you have the feeling that they would cringe at such public displays of their…

It was at a large wedding reception in New York City that I saw Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, sitting down to dinner one spring evening in 2000. Having heard on the grapevine that the Federal Reserve was finally going to do something about predatory lending—an area of enforcement under their jurisdiction—I went…

Here is a short list of what you won’t hear much of from the front-runners in this presidential primary season. Call them the candidate taboos. You won’t hear a call for a national crackdown on the corporate crime, fraud, and abuse that have robbed trillions of dollars from workers, investors, pension holders, taxpayers and consumers.…

The Obamarama Campaign Express was roaring down a New Hampshire highway near Nashua when an aide spotted the sprawling No Holds Barred Sports Bar. “Let’s stop the bus,” she urged, “and do some random schmoozing.” Obama and his entourage poured out of the bus and headed for the front door, over which hung a large…

The conscientious quest for turning around our fragile democracy can usefully turn its attention to a widespread but sub-visible phenomenon that can be called “The Next Step Not Taken.” Let’s look at three areas needing fundamental reforms where the people who can get them in place are not taking the next step. 1. Call them…

While many impoverished American families are shivering in the winter cold for lack of money to pay the oil baron their exorbitant price for home heating oil, ex-oil man, George W. Bush sleeps in a warm White House and relishes his defeat of the Congressional attempt to get rid of $15 billion in unconscionable tax…